Googlea subsidiary under the parent company Alphabet, paid about $26.3 billion in 2021 to remain the default search engine on competing web browsers and mobile devices.

The amount, which is far from a journalistic leak, was revealed by Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior executive responsible for search and advertising at Google, when he testified yesterday in an antitrust trial led by the United States Department of Justice.

That Google pays to remain the default search engine is something that has never been hidden, or at least it hasn’t been hidden for many years. Apple’s payments to keep iPhones, iPads and Macs by default are known. Although nothing is broken down in the Bloomberg item, all indications are that the apple-biting giant could take more than half of the $26.3 billion paid in 2021.

Prabhakar Raghavan confirmed this to the Ministry of Justice the total amount paid keep Google as the default search engine on web browsers and mobile devices has tripled since 2014. This suggests that the companies and foundations receiving the payments, with Apple clearly in the lead, would be tightening the screws to get more money.

Google’s revenue and costs will remain the default search engine on mobile devices and web browsers. Source: Bloomberg.

However, despite increasing the payment amount to remain as the default search engine, Search advertising will generate $146 billion in revenue for Google in 2021, an amount that has also grown over the years. This means that, at least for now, the deals are highly profitable, but that high profitability may play against Google, especially Apple, which may have a strong position due to size and social and economic impact, despite user share. does not dominate any market.

The question of how disclosing the amount of ad revenue might affect Google is important, considering that the company itself acknowledged that disclosing it could hurt it in negotiating future contracts, but that argument was not sufficient. prompting Amit Mehta, the judge overseeing the case, to back down from the request to produce the data.

It remains to be seen whether disclosing the amount of ad-generated revenue will hurt Google’s interests, especially as Microsoft increasingly bets on Bing and tries to establish it as the default search engine on Apple devices and Mozilla Firefox.